It's sooo nice to see this kind of thread
.
A lot of people want to believe that in order to lose weight it isn't necessary to restrict the food you eat. So, they convince themselves of all sorts of nonsense to explain why they aren't losing, like they aren't eating
enough, or they aren't eating enough
fat, or they added 10 berries to their diet, or whatever. The majority of the time people stall on Atkins because they just don't understand that calories, except in rare circumstances, are more important than carbs when it comes to losing weight.
It's important to understand why restricting carbs works. Restricting carbs helps get a body in a catabolic state as do many other things, but ultimately whether or not catabolism occurs depends
exclusively on energy balance. When there is no energy the body has no choice but to become catabolic, break down it's own fat (and other tissues), and use it for energy. If the body does not do this it would die. Therefore, for the overwhelming majority of people with weight problems, watching portion sizes - for life - is a crucial element in obtaining and maintaining normal weight... an element even more important than watching carbs. By watching the amount of calories you consume you have much more control over the process of whether or not your body is in a state of anabolic fat weight gain, catabolic tissue loss, or equilibrium.
The body naturally wants to maintain its weight, except in rare circumstances. Examples of such rare circumstances are: diseases or recovery from diseases which promote weight loss (type 1 diabetes, coming off of an insulin resistance promoting diet, post-growth spurt in childhood) or weight gain (eating a high carb diet which promotes hyperinsulinemia from insulin resistance (also, type 2 diabetes), pregnancy, pre-growth spurt in childhood).
Because many people who are fat tend to be unnaturally fat because of their high carb diet, for awhile there is a "grace" period upon starting the low carb diet where you can lose weight without even trying to limit calories. The body was only retaining so much fat because of the carbs, so taking them away causes your body to get into a catabolic mode. The longevity of this grace period tends to imply the degree to which your old weight was unnaturally elevated by carbohydrate consumption.
After awhile though the body intervenes and once again tried to maintain the status quo. It's unlikely you will regain the weight you lost, just so long as you adhere to carb control, but your body will again ask for enough calories to maintain it. Weight loss comes to a screeching halt at this point.
Once you've reached this stage, you have two options.
A)
Accept the truth, begin watching your food intake, and make a conscious effort to try to exercise more. There are many variations of this type of dieter. Some tend to hate the idea of restriction so instead they exercise like a fiend to compensate for their food intakes. Others hate the idea of exercise so they eat very little as a compromise (like me
). Most fall somewhere in the middle. Either way, generally speaking in order to keep weight loss going on a steady clip they reconcile with the fact that in order to lose any more weight they must make a
conscious effort to get the body to be catabolic... merely trading soda for cheese and not paying attention at all to how much you are eating isn't going to do it anymore. The body doesn't want to lose any more fat and wants to maintain its weight. You will have to force your body to be lower weight from now on. Now the body may naturally maintain the forced lower weight if it is on a LC diet... but the body will not put itself lower if it doesn't have to.
B)
Accept the truth, and stay the same weight. Usually this stage of acceptance of overweight is preceded by a period of self torture. The LCer frustrates herself to no end by doing unproductive things like "waiting out your stall" (sometimes for months or even years!), trying quack cures like the fat fast, raising fat, lowering fat, raising carbs, lowering carbs, pills, drinks, herbal supplements, or other "miracle solutions". The dieter does all this because the dieter doesn't want to accept that ultimately they must keep better track of their food intake, do more exercise, and/or restrict food more if they want to lose more weight. Deep down inside I think they know they must do this, but they don't want to accept it because restricting to lose weight feels too much like being on a diet. People with a long history of starvation diets on LF are especially prone to behaving this way.
Some unfortunate people who are especially prone to hyperinsulinemia just can't obtain a normal weight, even on a low carb and reasonably calorie restricted diet. The strong hyperinsulinemia means their body can't become catabolic like regular people's can... it requires much more severe caloric restrictions to be made in order to lower insulin low enough to facilitate catabolism. In this rare case, acceptance of overweight is their only realistic option, either that or force weight loss through unhealthy starvation level caloric intakes. However the overwhelming majority of people are not this badly insulin resistant/hyperinsulinemic and can maintain a healthy weight if they make the additional motion to watch calories & exercise more..